Abstract

Ion velocity distribution functions (ivdfs) are investigated by laser induced fluorescence in Ar–Xe and Ar–He expanding helicon plasmas as a function of gas composition. In the case of Ar–Xe plasma, it was found that in the helicon source, both the and vdfs are unimodal. Their parallel speeds are subsonic and unaffected by changes in gas composition. At the end of the source, the argon ivdf shows a bimodal structure indicative of an electric double layer upstream of the measurement location. The fast argon ion component parallel velocity increases with Xe fraction from 6.7 to 8 km/s as the Xe fraction increases from 0% to 4%. In the expansion region, the bimodal character of Ar ivdf is maintained with a supersonic fast component reaching parallel speeds of 10.5 km/s. For all the studied plasma conditions and different spatial locations, the vdf exhibits a unimodal structure with a maximum parallel flow velocity of 2.2 km/s at the end of the source. For Ar–He plasma, the Ar ivdf is bimodal with the fast ion component parallel velocity increasing from 5.2 to 7.8 km/s as the He fraction increases from 0% to 30%. For the same He fraction range, the slow argon ion population distribution changes from a single Gaussian to a wide distribution extending all the way from the speed of the fast population to 0 m/s.